# The "hoodie" and the "Buffett Rule"
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hoodie-and-the-buffett-rule/618943
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [April 16, 2012, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hoodie-and-the-buffett-rule/618943 "2012-04-16T12:18:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 17
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@Death\_of\_Rats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Death_of_Rats)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2012, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hoodie-and-the-buffett-rule/618943/61 "2012-04-18T19:04:26Z")
Relax, sometimes a hooded sweatshirt is just a hooded sweatshirt.
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### Author:  [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2012, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hoodie-and-the-buffett-rule/618943/62 "2012-04-19T00:03:37Z")
In England people of all ages wear hoodies. The one I’m wearing right now was bought in LA, where I saw lots of people of different races wearing them. But there are so many different types that simply saying ‘hoodie’ wouldn’t be very descriptive if you were trying to help viewers identify the attacker.
“Hoodie” is used here as a term for disenfranchised youth, too (there was even the whole ‘hug a hoodie’ thing c.2006) but it’s becoming less common because clothing that Grannies wear is difficult to associate with hooliganism.
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### Author:  [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2012, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hoodie-and-the-buffett-rule/618943/63 "2012-04-19T03:37:15Z")
I can’t possibly comprehend your point from your rambling posts, but you sure are furious at them lib’ruls!
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### Author:  [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2012, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hoodie-and-the-buffett-rule/618943/64 "2012-04-19T12:38:45Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> I would say people are wearing hoodies to express their frustration with the shooting and the lack of an arrest and to express support for a grieving family. What you are saying about the hoodie being “a symbol of racism” doesn’t make any sense, and I’m a little skeptical of your ability to correctly interpret the motives of people who you think are dead wrong about everything.
OK..I give up. The reactions you refer to and the hoodie-wearing protests have nothing to do with race.
Can you at least help point that out to Sharpton and his ilk and convince them to go away… forever… please!!!
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### Author:  [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2012, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hoodie-and-the-buffett-rule/618943/65 "2012-04-19T12:46:06Z")
Well, Sharpton can be a grand-standing race-baiting buffoon, but he has been since long before anyone called hooded sweatshirts “Hoodies.” I am failing to see a causative connection to a newsreader using a more preceise term for a garment when giving the description of a suspect.
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### Author:  [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2012, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hoodie-and-the-buffett-rule/618943/66 "2012-04-19T16:00:25Z")
> [@What\_the](#):
>
> OK..I give up. The reactions you refer to and the hoodie-wearing protests have nothing to do with race.
>
> Can you at least help point that out to Sharpton and his ilk and convince them to go away… forever… please!!!
Stop the presses… I just remembered how Obama himself made it about race with his comment about the son he doesn’t have. Now I’m torn…do I continue to argue that the Martin case/complaints are about race … or do I just lump Obama in with Sharpton’s ilk?
I think I’ll go with the latter and trust that if Obama goes away this fall it won’t be in any way about race either.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2012, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hoodie-and-the-buffett-rule/618943/67 "2012-04-19T16:14:06Z")
I still have no idea what you’re going on about.
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### Author:  [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2012, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hoodie-and-the-buffett-rule/618943/68 "2012-04-20T14:43:11Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> I still have no idea what you’re going on about.
He’s going on about THOSE people having the nerve to be uppity.
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### Author:  [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2012, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hoodie-and-the-buffett-rule/618943/69 "2012-04-20T15:22:28Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> I still have no idea what you’re going on about.
Nor am I clear on your position. Is it that…
1. The case has nothing to do about race?
2. The case has a little to do with race for a few but the “hoodie” isn’t a symbol those few are using to to protest racism? What was Seal’s floor speech about… I don’t know myself?
3. That symbolism isn’t important and the proprietors aren’t willing to protect their rights to that symbol? I’m reminded of how only the right black people are allowed (by some) to use the term “lynching” .
4. Simply that the newsreader was trying to be more helpful and provide a better description.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2012, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hoodie-and-the-buffett-rule/618943/70 "2012-04-20T15:43:30Z")
> [@What\_the](#):
>
> 1. The case has a little to do with race for a few but the “hoodie” isn’t a symbol those few are using to to protest racism?
Race is a major element in the controversy (although it isn’t the only one), but that’s not what we were talking about or what I was asking. My position is that people are not using the hoodie to protest racism. I’ve said that a few times. They’re protesting aspects of this case, not the general ill of “racism,” and hoodies are not “a symbol of racism.”
> [@](#):
>
> What was Seal’s floor speech about… I don’t know myself?
Oh for crying out loud. The guy wearing the hoodie was Congressman Bobby Rush, not Bobby Seale. Both were Black Panthers, but Bobby Seale was never a Congressman and Rush hasn’t been involved with the group for about 40 years. I haven’t seen the entire Rush speech, although I think I saw most of it. The gist of it is that he applauds the protests of the shooting and says people shouldn’t be judged for wearing hoodies, and that people shouldn’t be allowed to break the law because they’re in positions of power. He does make a reference to racial profiling, but he also talks about shootings without a racial component.
> [@](#):
>
> 1. Simply that the newsreader was trying to be more helpful and provide a better description.
Yes. I’ve said that repeatedly, too. “Hoodie” is a more general term and not one that everybody knows; saying this guy was wearing a hoodie with a zipper is unquestionably more specific.
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### Author:  [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2012, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hoodie-and-the-buffett-rule/618943/71 "2012-04-20T17:53:41Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> Race is a major element in the controversy (although it isn’t the only one), but that’s not what we were talking about or what I was asking. My position is that people are not using the hoodie to protest racism. I’ve said that a few times. They’re protesting aspects of this case, not the general ill of “racism,” and hoodies are not “a symbol of racism.”
> Oh for crying out loud. The guy wearing the hoodie was Congressman Bobby Rush, not Bobby Seale. Both were Black Panthers, but Bobby Seale was never a Congressman and Rush hasn’t been involved with the group for about 40 years. I haven’t seen the entire Rush speech, although I think I saw most of it. The gist of it is that he applauds the protests of the shooting and says people shouldn’t be judged for wearing hoodies, and that people shouldn’t be allowed to break the law because they’re in positions of power. He does make a reference to racial profiling, but he also talks about shootings without a racial component.
> Yes. I’ve said that repeatedly, too. “Hoodie” is a more general term and not one that everybody knows; saying this guy was wearing a hoodie with a zipper is unquestionably more specific.
Well at least I tried… Black Panther Congressman wasn’t good enough for you. 😃
Mostly about race? …When asked on Wednesday afternoon why he wore the hoodie on the House floor, he responded, “To demonstrate my outrage of Trayvon Martin’s Murder.”
“The reason he was killed was because he was a black man wearing a hoodie in a white neighborhood,” he added.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2012, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hoodie-and-the-buffett-rule/618943/72 "2012-04-20T17:57:39Z")
> [@What\_the](#):
>
> Well at least I tried… Black Panther Congressman wasn’t good enough for you. 😃
You didn’t try Google, obviously.
> [@](#):
>
> “The reason he was killed was because he was a black man wearing a hoodie in a white neighborhood,” he added.
Notice how he didn’t say “the hoodie is a symbol of racism?” It’s because it isn’t a symbol of racism. And I still don’t think the news broadcast avoided the word hoodie because the left is trying to preserve the spotless image of the hoodie or whatever it is.
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### Author:  [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2012, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hoodie-and-the-buffett-rule/618943/73 "2012-04-20T17:59:48Z")
> [@What\_the](#):
>
> Well at least I tried… Black Panther Congressman wasn’t good enough for you. 😃
>
> Mostly about race? …When asked on Wednesday afternoon why he wore the hoodie on the House floor, he responded, “To demonstrate my outrage of Trayvon Martin’s Murder.”
>
> “The reason he was killed was because he was a black man wearing a hoodie in a white neighborhood,” he added.
But the hoodie itself has nothing to do with race - it was an added factor (in the opinion of the Congressman). IOW, he might well not have been killed if he’d been wearing a suit. In one of the threads here someone did argue that Trayvon would have looked suspicious for wearing a hoodie in Florida.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2012, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hoodie-and-the-buffett-rule/618943/74 "2012-04-20T18:10:14Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#):
>
> In one of the threads here someone did argue that Trayvon would have looked suspicious for wearing a hoodie in Florida.
I don’t know if I want to get into this, but it was nighttime in February and it was raining. It doesn’t seem at all bizarre to me.
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### Author:  [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2012, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hoodie-and-the-buffett-rule/618943/75 "2012-04-20T18:17:33Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> I don’t know if I want to get into this, but it was nighttime in February and it was raining. It doesn’t seem at all bizarre to me.
Me neither - the point is, it was even mentioned here as an aggravating factor, and I know it was in numerous comments on the early news reports too.
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### Author:  [@Baracus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baracus)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2012, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hoodie-and-the-buffett-rule/618943/76 "2012-04-20T18:20:50Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> Notice how he didn’t say “the hoodie is a symbol of racism?” It’s because it isn’t a symbol of racism. And I still don’t think the news broadcast avoided the word hoodie because the left is trying to preserve the spotless image of the hoodie or whatever it is.
It isn’t impossible that there was some political motivation there, but to be as sure as the OP one would need to explain why [“hooded sweatshirt”](http://www.google.com/search?pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&tbm=nws&gl=us&as_q=suspect%20hooded%20sweatshirt&as_occt=any&as_drrb=b&as_mindate=1%2F1%2F12&as_maxdate=2%2F29%2F12&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A1%2F1%2F12%2Ccd_max%3A2%2F29%2F12&authuser=0) was used in suspect descriptions hundreds of times in the news the months _before_ Martin was killed.
Any ideas why they avoided using “hoodie” in those cases **What the … !!!**?
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### Author:  [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2012, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hoodie-and-the-buffett-rule/618943/77 "2012-04-21T13:16:34Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> You didn’t try Google, obviously.
> Notice how he didn’t say “the hoodie is a symbol of racism?” It’s because it isn’t a symbol of racism. And I still don’t think the news broadcast avoided the word hoodie because the left is trying to preserve the spotless image of the hoodie or whatever it is.
“Symbol” …“prop” … whatever.
I guess it’s time to move on to the Buffet Rule … “symbolic” of a brilliant change to fix the defecit that is supported by a rich white guy and would treat women fairly too (you know the ones I’m talking about…those that the Republicans have declared war on.)
Now who would want ruin that image?
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